Project: A Christmas card for Sketch Saturday

Happy Saturday! This week at Sketch Saturday we are playing with a sketch I designed, wahoo! I had a lot of fun looking through our Scrap N Dipity sponsor this week as there are so many sweet images to chose from.

I love these little penguins and I colored them with ProMarkers. I fussy cut them out so I could layer them on top of each other. I was pretty generous with the glitter glue, I think Christmas cards are a chance to be a bit excessive! I added a Art & co sentiment at the bottom and then topped it off with some stars.

I hope you have fun playing along with my sketch!

Project: Anything Christmas for MAWTT

This week at Moving Along With the Times we are doing an anything Christmas challenge. Great brief right. 

I decided to make something of a collage card as I've been doing a lot of CAS lately and I wanted to make something with a few more textures. I started by blending a green card and adding a text stamp that works really well for background. I die cut it using a stitched rectangle die and then added a few stamps from a Christmas vintage Recollections set. The newsprint card is a scrap that I've had for a while and I thought it looked better on kraft card than on white. I added some olive green enamel triangles for texture and balance on the layout. 

I'm really thrilled with it, I may just make a few more like this as it was a lot of fun to do the layout. Hope you have fun playing along!

Project: Winter animals for MAWTT

This week at Moving Along with the Times we are doing a Winter Animals challenge. 

I decided to play along with these little Christmas penguins. I colored them with ProMarkers and then fussy cut them out. I added plenty of glitter glue to the pompoms and earmuffs. 

The sentiment is from a Recollections set and I decided to feature it in white so it would standout on the blue. The background paper is a green damask that I thought worked well with the images. 

Hope you have fun playing along! 

Project: Anything but a card for MAWTT

Hello and happy almost Christmas! This week at Moving Along with the Times we have an 'Anything but a Card' challenge for you. Luckily this time of year everyone giving gifts needs gift tags so this was a great opportunity for me to make a fun set.

I started with a fun deer stamp that I haven't used much despite having it for some time. I heat embossed it in black and white directly on a tag. I then blended the background using a mix of Distress Inks and Distress Oxides. I took two large background stamps, one that has a random sort of smooshed-texture and the other that is a moroccan tile pattern and used Distress Inks sprayed with water to get irregular prints. I added some paint flicks for good measure.

I tried a different image but it was a bit too busy given the complicated background, so I stuck to the deer for the rest of the mini set. I really liked having a messy play, it's always fun to get away from cards and mix it up a bit. Can't wait to see what projects you come up with!

Project: Star Stampz Christmas cards x2

This week at Sketch Saturday we have a fun sketch sponsored by Star Stampz. Truthfully, I couldn't choose an image so I made two cards with the sketch because I was that indecisive. Here's the sketch:

The first is just so silly. This one is called Christmas Tangle and I colored her using Spectrum Noir pencils and fussy cut her out. The background paper has been in my stash for ages and though I worried it was a bit too busy it gives it a lovely retro edge that I was looking for. I stamped the sentiment on a label that I cut from a newsprint paper. I added little glitter accents to the string of lights and then added two black candies to complete the sketch.

The second one is a bit simpler, featuring Santa's Letter which I also colored using Spectrum Noir pencils. The sentiment is an ancient banner I have, maybe my first ever Christmas sentiment set, and is a bit tricky to use but I think it works well as a headline banner. I added some really lovely stitched ribbon and two shiny red stars to complete the sentiment. Both were great fun to color, I really do love the sponsor this week.

Be sure to do a sketch before Friday to join the fun!

Project: A Bugaboo moose Christmas card

I love Bugaboo stamps - Claire introduced me to them years and years ago and they quickly became a digi favourite. So whenever we have them as a Sketch Saturday sponsor I do a little happy dance.

This image is A Kid's View Moose and I haven't used it for Christmas cards before - I don't know why! I colored a bunch of these and then die cut them in a rectangle and then paired them with lovely tartan papers from a Nordic Christmas stash I have. I embossed a brown card and then added a plain banner. The little tag is in a pop of jolly red to make it pop and stand out.

I love how it came together, I decided to make a few more so I had a little collection of them to add to my Christmas card stash which is always a great thing.

Project 448: One bulldog stamp 3 ways

Last year Claire gave me this great little French bulldog stamp and as I had just using him for Christmas I used him for wintery thank you cards. This year I decided to have a session playing with him exclusively and had fun making 3 relatively simple makes, keeping the color of the dog the same for all of them.

The headline were the simplest but probably also my favourites. I embossed a red card using a houndstooth folder (see what I did there?) and then die cut the dog in a circle. I used a Tim Holtz sentiment die set to frame the image and it's so simple but I really like how it came out. I added pearl accents to the scarf pompoms and left it at that.

This next one features a Nordic paper set from the stash and I chose one of the busier patterns simply because I've struggled to use them elsewhere but love the colors. I die cut the dog using the matching dies and popped him up on foam tape. I even used my ancient Happy Christmas peel-offs in one of the plain stripes as I couldn't get a sentiment to work otherwise.

I thought I would show this one even though it's my least favourite. I used adhesive fabric (I bought a set at Tiger to see if I liked it - I don't think I do) and a scrap of spotted paper already on my desk. I die cut the dog in a circle again. I think it's the colors, maybe that's why I don't love it. Or maybe I just really prefer the other two. Who knows! Still fun to try the same image a few different ways.

Project 443: New stamps for Christmast

Every year I buy myself some new Christmas stamps in January sales and then, come Septemper I get all surprised shopping my own stash. It's really funny to discover what your craft taste was 9 months previously - was it CAS? Was it all about the sentiment? 

So this series was made from things I got in the Recollections sale. The hero card features a Tim Holtz stamp from Claire and the sentiment was from the sale. I loved the deconstructed tree with the ddefinition sentiment. It's a great combo in my book. The background is a sheet of washi paper that I found in my stash - Claire gave it to me years ago and I confess that I lost it in my files of stuff until today! I die cut it with stitched square dies and then cut the card blanks to fit. To top it off I added really minimal touches of glitter glue in green, gold and red. I like how minimalist and simple it is. 

The bears are too fun. I did the gingham bear in red and the holly in green using Stampin' Up dye inks. The papers are ANCIENT - I mean like 4-5 years ago - and I was so pleased I could make the pattern work with the die. I love shopping the stash. All in all I really enjoyed making them - I did 16 total in about 2 hours so I was pleased with my production line effors. I am solidly on track for my deadline to be done in November :) 

Project 441: A mini-masked and heat embossed Christmas card

I saw the layout at Freshly Made Sketches and thought it would work perfectly with a wreath to make a Christmas card. Please forgive the bad lighting of the shot!

The stamp is a freebie from Creative Stamping magazine set I got earlier this year (Feb? March? I used it for Mother's Day cards so must have been before that!) and I heat embossed it with Platinum Ranger embossing powder. I used Peeled Paint Distress Ink to blend a little stripe that I masked off behind the wreath. I added a sentiment with a lot of flourish as I thought it suited the wreath. I've had that set for years, Claire gave it to me as one of my first Christmas sets. I added little touches of enamel accents to make the berries pop and some white as accents.

I kept it really CAS as I like a minimalist Christmas card - I just wish I had taken a better photo!

Project: Christmas sketch at Sketch Saturday

Hello and Happy Saturday! This week we have an open sketch week at Sketch Saturday, where you can pick any sketch from 215 to 482. Go nuts!

I decided to go for sketch 470 as our sponsor AMB Illustrations had this wonderful set of Christmas birds and I thought they'd look great in the layout:

I colored the images with Spectrum Noir colored pencils and die cut them in ovals. I used glitter paper strips for the diagonal crosses and patterned papers for the background. I tried them on white but they both looked better on a kraft card background. I confess that I started off liking the bauble bird more to start but ended up favouring the candy cane bird. Isn't it funny when it works out like that?

Can't wait to see what you do with an open sketch brief!

Project: Christmas Scenes for MAWTT

There are few things I love more than a good Christmas scene. I love this time of year and all of the festive things that go with it! So to celebrate, Jan is hosting a Christmas Scene challenge at Moving Along With the Times and we want to see you create a project that depicts a cozy/festive/wintery/Christmasy scene.

I loved this so much I made two. The headline card features a great little stamp that Claire got me as well as a new sentiment I picked up in the Michael's Black Friday sale this year. I heat embossed it in black on a stitched rectangle die that I stole from Claire's stash...she really shouldn't be so generous with her stuff...or maybe she doesn't know she's being generous? ;) I used Distress Inks to watercolor the background, going from grey to light green and then blue at the top. I kept the area around the house blank and then used Wink of Stella shimmer to give it a lovely snowy sheen. The ribbon was a scrap on my desk and happened to go perfectly so I added it to the bottom for a little contemporary touch.

This second card features a big stamp that is also from the Michael's Black Friday sale. I used Stampin' Up khaki dye ink on brown card to get a stain look and then added a die cut sentiment from Dies R Us. The background paper is at least one or two years old...can't quite remember the origins there! I added tiny white enamel accents to make it look like snow and make it pop a bit.

I hope you have fun creating some scenes, can't wait to see what you come up with!

Project 376: Heat embossed painted christmas cards

I found a stash of oval water-colour papers that Claire had given me ages ago. I thought they would be fun to try a mini set of Christmas cards so I had a little play at my desk.

I embossed a few different stamps (reindeer, tree, wreath and a large sentiment) in gold and silver and then painted the background using Distress Ink as watercolours.

I then layered these over patterned paper or washi sheets (really had fun with those!) and decided against a sentiment. I added only a tiny touch of bling to the wreath as it looked naked, otherwise I think they're all much better left with just the pattern of the paper and the heat embossed design. 

I'll confess that the heat embossing got boring pretty quickly but the painting went quickly and because they were already cut to ovals they were really easy to assemble. I'm pretty much done my Christmas cards this year unless I decide to take any orders from colleagues so now it's just about filling them out and sending them! 

Project 374: 6 takes on Christmas tags

I'm going to a girlfriend's today for lunch and it is a bit of a reunion as 6 of us are going to be seeing each other for tthe first time in a while.

I wanted to take a little hostess gift and though, why not take a little gift for everyone? As we're in November and it is finally acceptable to be publicly talking about Christmas I thought to make little sets of tags. All the tags are pre-made from my stash and I made x5 of each, in all different sizes.

This was a great project, really a playground for fun ideas, simple and more involved. The headline card is a heat embossed reindeer from last year's Creative Stamping magazine freebie set. It embosses BEAUTIFULLY as you can see.

This one used some lovely washi sheets (from Claire) as a background, topped with little Jolee's Boutique gingerbread men stickers. This is probably my favourite for it's cheerfulness.

This one was a 'fun with punches' moment where I used scraps of this warm tartan paper to get the hearts and then topped it with punched bows (also scraps) from a punch Claire gave me that I always struggle to find a use for. It's perfect here.

Next up is a fun Little Claire robin stamp that i colored with promarkers (fairly badly, as you can see) and topped with some red glitter glue. I wasn't feeling the coloring this morning so this is the only one that had it.

This guy features a random mix of small snowflake stamps from an ancient wooden set my husband put in my stocking years and years ago. It still brings me joy as it's so simple.

Finally I diecut some trees and added little glitter glue baubles to make them stand out.

So much fun playing with all these techniques, my original intention was to give a uniform set of each type to a different friend but a) I thought of a 6th concept to play with and b) I couldn't make up my mind to give what to whom. So I just did a mixed set of each for all of them. I hope my friends like them!

Project 364: Modern Nordic greetings for Christmas

I am playing around with Christmas ideas and I wanted to make some simple cards that featured these big Tim Holtz script greetings I bought earlier this year.

Last year I bought some Nordic-themed paper for a specific project and I have a bunch left over. I thought they would be a great backdrop to the greetings and, because they're so fun and patterned, very little else was needed.

I die cut all my greetings up front and then played around with what went where. Because the papers are so busy I decided to back them on some colored blocks - all scraps. Score.

The headline is a fun one, and all I added was some bling to dot the j and i in the greeting.

This one I kept really simple, not even adding the bling.

An alternative one here, I got a bit of a scummy glue stain on the 'snow' so I covered it in glitter. Bit weird, but I decided to go with it. It was better than the smudged glue stain!

Finally this one features a different sentiment, a Dieversions Let it snow die that I got much earlier this year. It is much smaller than the other ones so I used a small scrap of the green paper and cut down a small white card as a base, using a red card scrap with a corrgated scrap to make it stand out. Using scraps and creating some fun new things - WIN.

Project 363: Preppy Christmas cards

I had tried my basket weave embossing folder on some die cut Christmas trees to see if the texture worked and decided to try something a bit different. I looked through my box of cut dies and found these double stitched rings from Claire. I picked out pink, navy and red ones as I thought they could work with the lovely green of the trees.

For the headline, I used a sentiment set that Claire gifted me (from a prize draw was it? or Cheiron?) as I thought the really long headline worked well in the landscape format. I added little colored enamel dots to make it preppy and modern.

For some, I used a small ring and cut the card down to a short rectangle and used an alternative greeting from the same set.

And I had to show this: as I was moving one of the red ones to dry I dropped it and some of the enamel dots smudged. I was so cross! So I had a look at what I had in my little bag of Christmas tricks and used some punched snowflakes that are from 4 or 5 years ago when we did about 100 cards that had punched snowflakes from photo paper and dotted them around to cover the smudges.

As I already had everything die cut they were really easy - I made 5 in about 8 minutes!

Project 360: A head start on Christmas part 2

This is the second half of my makes from the playdate with Claire. We had a great session and by the end I had blitzed through 11 cards and felt much better about the looming Christmas season.

The headline card was one that came together with some advice from Claire (that I didn't strictly follow!). I had pulled out these little images because she had given them to me as part of a set ages ago and I had just rediscovered them. It was her idea to put them into one long DL card instead of using them individually, which I liked. I backed them against a script printed card sheet that I got at Michael's ages ago.

I used a sentiment that is actually a stack of three words but I masked them off so I could use one on each tag, finding the right ones for each image. This was a super simple card once I had made the decisions and I think it will be a fun one to send out.

These are part of a set that I bought in a sale - a die with three different patterned trees. I used green scraps on my desk and heat embossed the different patterns in white, gold and red. I prefer the gold and white on the dark green the best from all the options. I was originally planning on grouping them together but decided that individually they were much stronger and it meant I got far more cards from my heat-embossing and die-cutting! I added little white enamel accents for snow and a new Merry Christmas greeting that Claire gave me this year from a set she was given. Simple but cute, I think I will be making a lot of these - especially as Claire also gave me the tip of using an embossing folder for texture and then die cutting those...swoon!

Project 359: A head start on Christmas part 1

This post is from the craft date I had with Claire trying to make a few fussy Christmas cards. You want your Christmas cards to look fun and interesting (people expect it when you're a crafter) but then again you don't want every card to take 45 minutes or you'd never get anything else done in the year!

We decided to try a technique where you heat emboss in white and then use your fingers to dip watercolour paint (in this case Distress Ink spritzed with water) to give it a smudgy kind of effect.

The two images I chose were a snowflake set that is new from Claire and one of my oldest Christmas stamps, an owl tree by Little Claire.

For the snowflakes, we heat embossed and then used a couple of blue and purple inks to get the colors. I layered this over purple stock and then used a star border punch from American Crafts for the bottom. I die cut the sentiment from DieVersions and layered it on black card to stand out. It was too busy with the background to get the text on the purple.

The second one used two green inks and I went for a much more dotted look, I intentionally blended less and just built up the color in dots. I kept this one simpler, and added some raffia at the bottom with some bling star stickers at the top. I kept it sentiment free as I didn't think it needed anything.

They took a long time to heat emboss but I think they have a really special effect. Maybe for special friends and relatives only!

Project 276: A metallic CAS Christmas card

I love dropping by CAS-ual Fridays and this month they have a metallic theme to play along with.

I got this great stamp set for free with a card magazine and haven't tried embossing it before today. It's a dream! I thought it would look starkest using silver glitter embossing powder against a black background. I added touches of red glitter to the baubles and dotted some around the tree with some red sequins. I left it sentiment free - kind of obvious what it's for I thought!

I'm still pretty new to heat-embossing so I was delighted with this result and will definitely make a few more to feature this gorgeous stamp.

Project 271: A double take on Christmas cards

I had a bit of a play around this weekend and wanted to try some different Christmas cards. I had seen a craft magazine where a shaker card mimics the shape of a snow globe and I thought that would be a really fun thing to experiment with.

I used a spotted Christmas paper from a DCWV stack as my background and cut out the circle. I decided to shake things up (a terrible pun, forgive me) and use a bit of red foam that would be visible as my separator for the sequins - I thought it would help define the dome of the circle and I'm glad I did. I put a sparkly tree sticker int he middle and then filled it with gold and silver sequins. I hand cut the little black base and added the peel offs. It's got a bit of a retro quality but the colors keep it kind of fresh. I like it.

With the offcut of the circle I made this little guy. I had a mini square card blank and so I free-styled a bit by cutting a scrap of green paper into a tree, adding some needles with a ProMarker and added a blingy star and some glue dots for baubles. It took 5 minutes and I like it more than some of my other Christmas cards that took far longer!

A really fun experiment, will definitely try more snow globes for special cards in the future.